Nick and I are both finally back home. He arrived a week and a half ago, and I flew in late Tuesday night.
There are lots of stories and pictures to share from the last few days of our India trip, our two days in London, and my trip in France. I am working on them and hope I can post it all next week.
Right now we are on our way to Rochester, New York for Moshe Kornfeld's wedding. Hope to blog about that too.
Happy 4th of July weekend!
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This morning is our last in McLeod Ganj. It was a nice respite from Delhi, but we are ready to move on. Before leaving, we get a Tibetan breakfast of Tingmo, which is steamed bread, and Tibetan porridge, which is like cream of wheat. We also take one last picture of the view from our hotel room balcony, which is the best view we have had in any hotel room on our trip.
Our driver from the drive up Arjun, promptly picks us up, and we head down to Pathankot for our 4pm train to Amritsar. On the way we stop for lunch at a North Indian restaurant. We are enjoying North Indian food, but discovered that we like South Indian more. The dishes in North India are heavier with more oils and creamy sauces and thick breads. At the end of the meal, the waiter brings us a little brass bowl with warm water and lemon. Lauren figured it was some sort of after lunch tea, so she picked up the bowl and started drinking until the waiter looked at her strangely. When she looked around, she realized that the other people in the restaurant washed their hands in the water, so she followed suit. This was a good lesson for other North Indian restaurants.
We arrived to the Pathankot train station several hours early and discovered that the first and second class waiting rooms are not a bad spot to hang out. We did get some staring, but no hagglers or hasslers came through the door. You are not allowed in without a first or second class ticket, and apparently people follow that rule at the train station.
We had a surprisingly nice train to Amritsar when the train finally came. Our coach mates were a man named Vipukumar and a woman named Srutu. Vipukumar immediately asked us where we were from when we sat down. He was very friendly and talkative and bought us all tea. He worked for the army and told us about his job and his family. Srutu was getting her PhD in psychology and worked as a school counselor and private therapist. Both of them are from Kashmir, although Vipukumar lives all over the country now with the army in 2-3 year posts. They were very nice people and the time passed by quickly on the train. Srutu advised us to go see the Golden Temple when we arrived at night. We had just planned on going in the morning, but she said she liked it better at night. It was great advice, because later we found the temple more beautiful at night as well.
Srutu couldn’t believe that we were married. She initially asked us if we were brother and sister or friends. She thought that we looked too young to be married. This may explain some of the additional staring we receive when we are together.
As soon as we arrived to Amritsar and walked out of the train station, we were immediately approached by taxi and rickshaw drivers asking us where we were going. We had organized a pickup from the hotel, but it was running late. We decided to patiently wait until the car came. As we drove to our hotel, we get to see some of Amritsar nightlife. The city is so crowded and busy, and really alive at night. This may be because we are here on a weekend. Our hotel in Amritsar, Hotel Indus, is fine but has some pros and cons. Two major pros are that it is literally right across the street from the Golden Temple, and there is an excellent view of the temple from its rooftop. The con is that our basic room has no windows at all which will make getting up in the morning a little difficult.
After taking some pictures of the temple from the top of the hotel roof, we head out to grab something quick to eat and visit the Golden Temple itself at around 9:30pm.
We go out into the craziness that is the old city of Amritsar, but unfortunately can’t find any of the restaurants we are looking for. Both of us are a little fazed by the crowded streets and decide to just skip dinner and head to the Golden Temple. The gates to the Temple are very crowded as well, which is a surprise to us at 10pm at night. This is the latest we have been out during our entire trip in India! We have a hard time finding the pavilion where we are supposed to leave our shoes, but finally get there. Before entering the temple, you must wash your hands and if you like your face at sinks around the gate, and then wash your feet in water, by walking through a little pool before you enter onto temple grounds. Both women and men are required to cover their heads while in the temple, so Nick and I quickly wrap the scarves we’ve brought around our heads.
The view of the temple at night is truly beautiful. It is all lit up and shines on its own, while its reflection shimmers in the pool surrounding it. Everyone walks around the temple taking photos. Many people just hang out on the side of the pool and others go swimming in the pool, men in their underwear or pants and women in their full outfits.
The Golden Temple is supposed to be the holiest shrine of Sikhism, and the architecture of the temple is a blend of Hindu and Islamic styles. The Parkama is the marble walkway that surrounds the pool which is called the Amrit Sarovar or pool of nectar. The Hari Mandar Sahib is the actual golden and marble temple in the middle of the pool. 4 priests constantly chant inside the Hari from the Sikh holy book, Guru Granth Sahib, which is broadcasted by loudspeakers so you can hear it all around the old city. The Holy Book is kept inside the Hari and taken to a different building inside the temple complex called the Akal Takhat at night around 10:15. We tried to see what was going on with that ceremony, but it was too crowded to make out anything. We just walked around the walkway and decided not to go into the Hari that evening because of the crowds. We were hoping to try for tomorrow.
Instead we decide to take what looked like a short walk on our Lonely Planet map to the Men-Tsee-Khang Museum. This is the Tibetan Medical and Astrological Institute which focuses on Amchi or traditional Tibetan medicine. After breakfast we leave for the museum at around 10:45, hoping to get there no later than 11:30, since the museum closes for lunch from 1-2.
As it turns out, we ended up hiking, because the Lonely Planet maps are not accurately scaled. What looked like a short walk on the map turned out to be a trek down long windy mountain roads. One kilometer gets very stretched out when you are walking up and down dusty rocky hills. The map is not only inaccurate with scale, but also incorrect in general. We get very lost. McLeod Ganj is a small place, so we figure we will find our way eventually and take the opportunity to explore while we figure out where we are.
We ended up passing a number of other quieter Tibetan temples and monasteries. There are prayer wheels, monks praying, and Tibetan prayer flags strung up in the trees throughout our path. There are also many cows and goats who aggressively share the dirt roads with people. As one older Tibetan man was walking, in his attempt to avoid a cow with large horns that had planted itself firmly smack in the middle of the road, he slipped and fell down. Fortunately he was all right, but I use this example to show that the cows mean serious business when claiming their place on the roads. I ve mentioned before as well that there is often not enough space for 2 cars to fit on the road, let alone people. We often scooted over to the very side of the road, standing out of the way, so 2 cars could precariously fit by one another. We saw one man fall over on his motorcycle when trying to pass a car and several tourists also. Fortunately he was fine as well.
As we walk along, we desperately try to communicate with the locals to get directions, asking a monk, a nun, and several older Tibetans how we can best get to the Medical Institute. Nobody spoke any English, but we tried our best. First the nun pointed us in a direction that led us to an old age home and an apartment complex. We ended up walking along the back porches of a number of houses, also shared by cows and goats, until we could find the path again. The residents didn t really stare at us, so it must be normal for tourists to get lost in their backyards around here.
At some point, we clearly ended up off the road on a path that was basically stone steps in a more forested area of the mountain. You could go in any direction, and we blindly chose to go down, since we had no idea where we were. After about 5 minutes, we ran into an older Tibetan woman and again asked her for directions. She didn t speak any English at all, but she pointed to each direction of the path and said the name of the city or village it eventually led to. We tried showing her the map, but she motioned to us that her eyesight was not good. The only thing that each of us understood in that conversation as she spoke in Tibetan and we spoke in English, was the names of the different places, but we had a full five minute conversation as she earnestly tried to help us. We appreciated her willingness to help and patience with us. In any case, her gestures led us to the right path. Finally we encountered an Australian tourist, walking back up the road, who said that if we continued we would find the medical institute and commented that it is much much farther away than it looks on the map.
By the time we arrived to the museum, it was of course 1pm, and it had already closed for lunch. There was no way we were walking back up the mountain or anywhere else after our long journey to get to this museum, so we decided to stick around for an hour and tried to find a place for lunch. There were only 2 restaurants near the institute. The first one we sat down in had no vegetarian food, so we walked across the street to the other one. We sat down at a table in this dark restaurant, and no one approached us for about 10 minutes. Finally I walked up to the kitchen door and asked if there was a menu. There were only two people in the kitchen, the owner/cook and an assistant/waitress. The cook laughed at me when I asked him for a menu. He then pointed to a large pile of noodles in one corner, assorted vegetables on a table, rice in a large vat, and steamed momos in a pot. He had one pan where he was individually cooking the different dishes. I got the point and asked for one fried noodles with vegetables and one plate of fried momos. We helped ourselves to bottled drinks from the refrigerator, as we saw the other patrons doing. The food wasn t bad, and we ate with chopsticks, which we haven t done in awhile.
We had some more time to spend before the Museum reopened. We walked over to the offices of the Secretariat of the Tibetan Government in Exile, which basically has all the different offices of any government such as treasury and education, but this one is in exile. Along the way we were approached by two different women beggars with small children. It was interesting for us to see that the Monks ignore these beggars. They are known for being very compassionate and kind, but apparently begging is not accepted or looked well upon in the religion. I had some momos left over from lunch packed in a take-away bag which Nick went to give one of the women. She refused it and asked for money instead. Two locals on the street yelled at her to take the food, so she changed her mind and took it after a minute.
We finally visited the museum itself which honestly wasn t worth the long journey, although the trip there led us to many worthwhile experiences. It was basically two little rooms. One had samples of all of the different herbs and stones that are used in the medicine with their names and popular usages. The basement room had tapestries that are used in the medical institutes to teach students about the body and different diseases.
There was no way we were walking back up that mountain after this morning's unexpected hike. Fortunately there was a taxi stand near the museum, so we gratefully took a taxi back up.
At night, we headed over to a Tibetan Film Festival that was running at the Cultural center. There were different movies about Tibet playing throughout the day and evening that week. We saw one documentary about Tibetan exile from the 1970's. It was interesting, but a little long, so we went to get dinner before calling it a night.
We had dinner at a Japanese Restaurant called Lung Ta. This is really the first time we have had uncooked vegetables and certainly sushi since coming to India. The food was good, and the view from the patio was magnificent. Nick and I realized over dinner that we haven t been talking to each other much in McLeod Ganj when we are in public places. All the tourists are from different countries, have been traveling typically for long periods of time, and have interesting stories, so instead we just eavesdrop on different conversations. At this restaurant we listened to an Israel guy, who recently got out of the army, hitting on a Finnish girl, who came to McLeod Ganj every summer to study yoga. He was traveling in a large group, while she was visiting first with her on and off boyfriend and then alone.
We headed back to the hotel after dinner to share the information we had collected and pack up since we leave tomorrow back to Pathankot en route to Amritsar.
Above are a number of pictures from the day, starting with the Chorten in town. I described the Chorten in yesterday's post, but forgot to put a photo then.
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The road to McLeod Ganj, which is in the Himalayas at 2082 meters or 6831 feet, is a winding road up the mountain. Some of the road is well paved and wide, but as you get farther up the mountain it becomes more narrow and dusty, with barely enough room for 2 cars to fit side by side without falling off the edge. We see some monkeys at various points on the side of the road, which is entertaining. As it turns out these monkeys are all over McLeod Ganj.
When we arrive to McLeod Ganj, we immediately check into our hotel, drop off our luggage, and walk into the town to find some lunch. The town is famous, because the Dalai Lama lives here along with the Exiled Tibetan government. There is a large community of Tibetan refugees and Buddhist monks and nuns. We also discovered that this town is hippy tourist heaven, perhaps seeking to be near his holiness? It seems that if you are in your late teens or early twenties with an affinity for long flowing skirts and dreds, an Israeli in India who has just finished your army service, or in your 50 s or 60 s and seeking to relive your heyday of peace and love, McLeod Ganj is the place for you. Nick and I suddenly feel a little old and very clean. So clean in fact that the beggars in McLeod Ganj seek us out even though there are 25 other foreigners standing on the street. Nick thinks that we need to roll around in the dirt a little to fit in around here.
Although the tourist environment is somewhat surprising and overwhelming, it is actually nice to be in a place with lots of tourists. We get stared at less, and there are lots of events going on in the town to cater to tourists like film festivals, cooking classes, and lectures on Buddhism. We realize that we have encountered the Yoga India. When I hear that people go to India for months to study yoga or meditate, I had a hard time picturing them in the different places we have seen in India. But we have no problem picturing them here in McLeod Ganj, and indeed we find many foreigners of all ages who come here for weeks or months to take courses in yoga, religion, philosophy, or meditation.
At lunch over Momo soup (more to come later on momos), we talk to some fellow travelers who happen to be recent graduates from SUNY Geneseo near Rochester, New York. Most of the travelers here are only doing a Northern India Circuit including Delhi and a number of towns in the mountains such as Simla and Manali, with perhaps an excursion to Nepal, and are avoiding South India because of the monsoon. While this part of India is definitely interesting and different, we loved our travel in South India and realize that we are so happy that was a focus of our trip. We feel that we would have really missed out if we had just done the North India travel circuit.
After lunch we check out our transportation options for the return trip to Pathankot in 2 days. We debate taking the bus, because it is really inexpensive and would be an interesting experience. When we reach the bus station and take a good hard look at the bus, we finally admit to ourselves that we are no longer 21 year olds and cannot consider ourselves backpackers, even though we are carrying backpacks across this country. In truth, we have upgraded from buses to cars and trains, and on our next trip to India we will probably further upgrade to more planes. There is nothing really wrong with the bus, it is just crowded, would require throwing our bags on top of the roof, and looks like it is falling apart. When we imagine ourselves riding on this rickety contraption along the narrow roads down to Pathankot side by side with sitting in a car with our luggage in the trunk, the car wins. Since we really liked our driver Arjun from the morning, we go ahead and arrange for him to pick us up in 2 days for the drive back.
We walk back through the town and visit the Chorten which is a small temple with prayer wheels smack in the middle of town. It is surrounded by little shops, street vendors, and women frying momos. We buy the first of what will be many Momo street snacks. Momos are like little dumplings filled with potatoes or vegetables, which come either steamed or fried. Every restaurant and street vendor has a different version of momos, with subtleties in the dough batter and fillings. They are very good, and eating momos quickly becomes our favorite activity in McLeod Ganj. The woman on the street fries them up for us in her little pot, and hands them to us in a tinfoil cup with some hot sauce. You can see two pictures with Nick holding momos, with a momo closeup.
Towards the evening, we visit the Tsuglagkhang Complex which contains the Photang, official residence of the Dalai Lama, Namgyal Gompa, debating area for the monks, Tibet Museum, which details the Tibetan persecution and exile, and the Tsuglagkhang itself which is a temple for Chenrezi, Tibetan god of compassion. We walk around the complex enjoying the varied environment of Tibetans, monks, and hippies, and go inside the temples. There was a 3m high statue of the Buddha and relics rescued from the Jokhang Temple in Tibet, during the Cultural Revolution, in the temple. Another temple there, the Kalachakra Temple had intricate murals. We unfortunately didn't see any monks debate. There are beautiful prayer wheels all around McLeod Ganj, and ones surrounding this complex. We walk around the prayer wheels, spinning them. Lastly we visit the Tibet Museum, which tells the story of the Chinese occupation of Tibet and the Tibetan Exodus.
The Dalai Lama is not in McLeod Ganj, during our visit, but there is constant hypothesizing about his arrival and departure throughout our stay. One woman says he was arriving tomorrow. Our hotel owner said he is definitely out of town, and another tourist mentioned that he just left. We are pretty sure he is out of town, and would probably more likely see him at a speaking engagement or event in the US.
Since we are tired from our overnight train, we head back to our hotel early. Our room balcony has an excellent view of the beautiful mountains. This is the first hotel room we have had without air conditioning. The temperature in McLeod Ganj is definitely much cooler than Delhi, and cools down allot at night, which is very pleasant after being in the heat for so long.
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As you can see, we are definitely a few days behind, actually about a week behind with posting. Right now we are staying with our friend Ali's parents in Amersham and going into London for 2 days.
I am trying to finish up our last week of India, so I can stay current with London and start posting on France (I leave tomorrow).
The shift to Delhi weather and life really shocked our systems, and both of us woke up a little sick and tired the next morning. Neither of us was immediately eager to venture out into Delhi’s heat and craziness sooner than we had to. Our hotel in Delhi had internet. We have not had a good connection in awhile, so we were content to spend the morning in our hotel and extended our stay there for as long as possible.
We finally emerged from our hotel around 12:30 to do some shopping reconnaissance. We don’t want to buy anything, because we will have to carry it with us back to Delhi in a few days. We just wanted to check out selection and prices for gifts and souvenirs, so that if we see different items or better prices on our trips over the next few days, we will know to buy them.
The shopping reconnaissance location was Connaught Place, which is a series of many inner and outer traffic circles, with seven main streets radiating from it. It’s sort of like the Times Square of Delhi, and there is lots of shopping and eating there. Of course we again visit McDonald’s and several other fast food places to grab drinks and make sure we stay hydrated throughout the day. For lunch we tried finding a South Indian restaurant recommended by the Lonely Planet guide, but we couldn’t find it. Instead we gave up and went to Pizza Hut, which was really upscale and nice compared to the ones at home. We had a paneer pizza. As it turns out the restaurant recommended by Lonely Planet was about 5 stores down, but we were easily discouraged at that point due to the heat and traffic.
We took the metro to get back and forth to Connaught Place, since there was a stop close to our hotel. The metro is really nice and user friendly. There is a mix of above ground and underground stations. There was a nice young girl who asked Nick if he was South American (Nick of course said no and gave no further details) that helped us navigate which line and direction we needed to take on the metro.
After another day in Delhi, we think it’s similar to New York in certain ways. We think people either really love it or really hate it. We like that it has everything. There are many shops, hotels, restaurants, and entertainment options. The city is also such an interesting mix of modernity with tradition, especially in the women’s fashion. People wear such a range of clothing from saris to jeans and t-shirts and then more Indian stylized western wear.
After our shopping excursion, we returned to the hotel to pass some time in the lobby before our night train to Pathankot. Lauren had called one of Delhi’s many cab companies to take them from the hotel to the Old Delhi train station. The hotel offered a cab service as well, but it was twice the price. As it turns out, the cab company did not come and was not going to come. In the end, we don’t know what the problem was, but think maybe it’s harder to get them to come to the Karol Bagh area. We found this out about 5 minutes before we needed to leave to the station for our train. At the last minute, we asked the hotel if we could use their driver. They quickly arranged for it, and we were on our way with about an hour to make it to our train through crazy Delhi traffic. Our driver seemed none to be pleased to be driving us last minute to Old Delhi. When we asked him to turn on the AC, in our supposedly paid for air conditioned car, he said he would charge us extra. We could have complained, but at that point were pretty focused on making it to the train station in one piece and on time. Several times it sounded like the driver’s car would just break down in the middle of traffic, but in the end he got us there on time. It was a nerve-wracking fingernail-biting car ride with Lauren and Nick none too excited about the prospect of missing their train and having to arrange last minute another night in Delhi.
We are traveling first class again overnight to Pathankot. We got a private 2 person coupe which is great. We didn’t request it-it’s just however the train organizes the seating. Next door to us is an Israeli couple with two small children and several enormous bags. We are impressed by them. It’s sometimes hard enough for us with just the two of us and our backpacks, and we are not sure how they are managing with 2 little kids and all the big luggage. We have it easy!
Nick relaxing on our overnight train
In the morning, Anup takes us to the nearby city Coimbatore, in the state Tamil Nadu, for our morning flight to Delhi. We had a nice goodbye and sendoff from his parents, who we will see again in Delhi.
We had a few minor troubles at the airport. Both of our watches mysteriously broke on the way to security. Lauren’s second deodorant was flagged by security as suspicious. The security woman couldn’t understand why I had two deodorants and thought the second one was a dangerous liquid. (We are traveling for a long time, so it doesn’t hurt to bring two.) Lastly we needed to produce the credit card used to purchase our ticket to get our plane tickets, which we had left at home, so we had to refund and repurchase our tickets on another card. We are still waiting for the refund to appear on our card. Spice Jet chastised us that this was written on their web page and ticket print out, which it is, but at the very very bottom underneath all of the other restrictions and rules, which we probably didn’t read.
Our flight was fine, and we had arranged a pick-up through our hotel. The driver was waiting for us, so that worked out well. As soon as we walked out of the airport, we felt like we had entered a sauna. Delhi that day was an oppressive 107 degrees, hot and dry, like Las Vegas. This was a shock to the system from humid tropical Kerala, which had cooled down after the start of the monsoons.
Delhi at first site represented many of the less pleasant stereotypes of India. It was dirty, dusty, crowded with awful traffic, and hot. We think these impressions have mostly to do with the area we stayed, called Karol Bagh, which is a very crowded and hectic market. Our friend Vivek told us not to stay there, and now we know why! The hotel itself was nice, so at least that worked out.
After checking in, we ventured out into the crowded market to do some window shopping. As we walked down the little alleyway/street from our hotel, we saw what we think was a hawk (or at least some kind of vulture) swoop in and pick up a rat crawling about 10 feet in front of us. We feel that this was symbolic of the rest of our time in Delhi, where we are the rat and Delhi is the hawk. After walking around for 2 hours being hassled by shopkeepers and rickshaw drivers continuously, Lauren realized she was really dehydrated from the Delhi heat, and needed something to drink fast.
We quickly found a McDonald’s, and have never been so happy to see the golden arches in our lives, probably because we never could eat as much in one before. We got the special vegetarian meal with extra large drinks. After spending some quality time in McDonald’s with cool air conditioning, we returned to our hotel for the night. So far, Delhi is not one of our favorite places in India! We miss Kerala.
We don’t have many photos from today. As you can see, the only thing we really got excited about was McDonald’s.
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